Video 3:36
Less talk of emergency

The government is winding back talk of a budget emergency with the future of key measures still uncertain and talking up the measures it has passed.

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: In a sign negotiations with the crossbench are not faring well, the Abbott Government is winding back talk of a budget emergency as the future of key measures remains uncertain.

Negotiations with key powerbroker Clive Palmer are being complicated by ongoing controversy over his party's bizarre public outbursts.

Political correspondent Tom Iggulden has more from Canberra.

TOM IGGULDEN, REPORTER: With no apparent breakthrough in negotiations to get tens of billions of dollars of budget cuts through the Senate, the Prime Minister's talking up the uncontentious measures the Government has passed.

TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: A lot of the savings in the Budget have already gone through. Some $20 billion or so are of the Budget savings were in the appropriations bills.

TOM IGGULDEN: The Coalition argued that unpopular measures like the new $7 doctor's fee, cuts to the dole and deregulation of university fees, were needed to address a budget emergency.

TONY ABBOTT (May 21): You see, we had a fire, and the Budget is the fire brigade. And, sure, sometimes the fire brigade knocks over a few fences in order to put out the fire.

TOM IGGULDEN: Today, the fences are apparently still standing.

TONY ABBOTT: We are the fire brigade, the budget debt and deficit disaster that Labor left us is the fire and we're in the process of putting it out. ... If we don't get the budget back under control and do it reasonably quickly, we will be setting ourselves up to fail. I do not want our country to start ebbing out of the top countries of the world.

TOM IGGULDEN: The Opposition's detecting a change in tone, ...

CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: This is a budget that's had more reboots than a Macintosh.

TOM IGGULDEN: ... as have even relatively Government-friendly crossbench senators.

NICK XENOPHON, INDEPENDENT SENATOR: The Government was crying wolf.

CHRIS BOWEN: The Government's got to decide: is it mission accomplished or is it budget crisis?

NICK XENOPHON: Two days ago, the budget was on life support. Today it appears to be on a banana lounge, kicking back on the Hayman Islands.

TOM IGGULDEN: If the budget emergency has taken a holiday, it'll deal a double blow to the Government. Political passions are still inflamed over the planned cuts, but without the fiscal payoff.

Getting that depends on the Palmer United Party, and if anything, relations between the Government and the PUP have worsened. Today the Prime Minister compared it with One Nation.

TONY ABBOTT: They were both populist outbreaks on the right of politics and, I think in the end, both pretty counter-productive in our national life.

TOM IGGULDEN: Clive Palmer accused the Government of using his description of the Chinese as "mongrels" to discredit him.

CLIVE PALMER, LEADER, PALMER UNITED PARTY (4BC Radio): So they're trying to throw as much rubbish as they can on us to affect us so we will - we'll do what they want to do.

TOM IGGULDEN: The Deputy Nationals Leader zeroed in on Jacqui Lambie's fears about a Chinese military invasion.

BARNABY JOYCE, AGRICULTURE MINISTER: These things sound amusing when they're said after 15 beers, but they're very, very dangerous if you want to say them on national television.

TOM IGGULDEN: She shot back over his views on beekeeping.

JACQUI LAMBIE, SENATOR, PALMER UNITED PARTY: When he can't even comprehend that we have bumble bees down here, but now we want to put them in our glass houses for better pollination, and yet, we've got them outside, then you've really got to ask Barnaby Joyce who's having the beers.

TOM IGGULDEN: None of that bodes particularly well for two sides who've pledged to approach negotiations in a spirit of dignity and respect. If this is what's being said in public, the mind boggles about what's being spoken behind closed doors.